What is the most effective use of the first 10 minutes of each class?

The first ten minutes of any lesson is the period when the student’s attention is at its highest. So everything done during that period will have an additional impact.

This of itself is good. But when that impact leads to extra confidence in maths, it is even better.

One of the most effective ways of utilising the opening ten minutes and developing confidence is to use the whiteboard to present students with a range of revision questions drawn from across the syllabus. Within this process, known as a Brain Gym, the students then work in small groups of two or three to evolve the right answer.

Working in this way gives students time to process the answers so it’s not always about who can answer the question first. Rather the students can listen to each other and can all become engaged no matter what their abilities are.

After the results of the students’ work are in, you can see if there is any general misconception among the students about any point tested, and from this you’ll know of any areas of the syllabus you need to revisit.

Many of the processes within each ‘gym’ are found in several concepts of the KS3 Scheme of Work and can bring about a noticeable change in pupils’ confidence in their use of fractions, percentages, and division and multiplication skills.

This resource uses Microsoft Excel and has twelve gyms for each month. The price is £39.99 + VAT.

Once purchased the CD can be freely copied and networked throughout the school.

To see sample pages please email sales@classroom-resources.co.uk quoting the order code 10129.

You can order the Brain Gym CD in any of these ways:

On our website By phone on 0117 940 6409 By fax on 0117 940 6408 By email (quoting a school order number) to sales@classroom-resources.co.uk By post to: Classroom Resources, PO Box 1489, Bristol, BS99 3QJ